


Cleaning Up

by Willa Shakespeare (AnonEhouse)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Gauda Prime, FIx It, HEX - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Insanity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:51:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1275496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Willa%20Shakespeare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avon is quite serenely mad, and when a tall, facially scarred man rescues him from the Federation, it's only natural to assume that Blake has come back from the dead to claim Avon.</p><p>It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?</p><p>(Incidentally the character who dies is unlikely to upset you. It's not Avon or Blake, and is very deserving of it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleaning Up

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Swept and Garnished](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/39040) by Jenner. 



(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

There is more noise outside the white room. I note it in passing. Blaster shots and screams, I think. But it is quiet in here, with Blake.

I am occupied, trying to reach a stubborn fleck on the ceiling. I could stand on the bucket, but the rim isn't strong enough to take my weight. Turning it over would work, but then I would lose all that I have already collected.

Perhaps I could ask Blake to give me a leg up? 

No, that wouldn't be right. I made the mess, so it's my responsibility to clean it. Perhaps if I jump, while holding the mop over my head? It's an oddly shaped ceiling, though, starting out low on one side and rising quite high at the wall where the door is set, and naturally,the fleck is at the highest point. 

The door opens. I hope they are not coming to take away the mop and bucket. They did that once, and it slowed the work greatly. Hands do not absorb blood very well, even when you tear the skin from them with your teeth to increase the surface area.

I have given up on the ceiling fleck, for the moment, and am kneeling beside a shallow pool of Blake's blood. It is so still, I can see myself reflected in it.

The person who has entered the room is talking. I don't understand him, but he is more determined than the others, and gets down on the floor beside me. He puts his hands on my shoulders, and turns me around, so fast that I lose my balance, and must grip at his arms.

His arms. They are very strong, very muscular beneath my hands. He is wearing something dull-colored and loose. He shakes me, and my head flies back, and my eyes open wide, without my intervention.

He is a tall man. Broad-shouldered. He is wearing a hood, but it slips back as he shakes me. His eye, his poor scarred eye...

"Blake!" I cry out and grip the arms tightly. I am smiling, I can feel the unaccustomed stretch of my lips. It hurts, and the pounding of my heart in my chest hurts, but that is all right. It should hurt. Loving Blake always hurt.

Blake looks startled, and then his features tighten in determination. "Yes. Come with me now, Avon."

"Of course," I say and rise to my feet. It is difficult after so long on my knees, but I try very hard. I do not wish to disappoint Blake. He might leave.

Blake supports me to the door, and guides me around several bodies. They are no one I know, but then, everyone I know is dead, so perhaps I do know them. It doesn't matter.

We run, and Blake shoots a great many people. He does not offer me a gun. I suppose I could understand that. I was never very good with guns.

I am trying to see where we are going. It looks as if we are on a large ship, which is something I do not recall. But then, I had more important matters on my mind. Blake has a ship docked to the large one, and he takes it away from the large one which fires on us, and then explodes.

This seems unusual, but Blake laughs and says, "Servalan forgot I knew the self-destruct codes. Pity she wasn't aboard." He gives orders to his pilot, and I notice the pilot is a mutoid. This also seems odd, but then Jenna is dead, isn't she? I seem to recall someone telling Tarrant that. But when did Tarrant tell me? Before he died there wasn't time, and afterward, I was too busy with Blake. It's too confusing and I let it go. Blake is here. Nothing else matters.

I try to kiss him, but he is reluctant. Well, we are on the flight deck. I suppose it's bad for morale. He runs his hand down my back, and gives my buttocks a hard squeeze. He smiles. "Later. Business before pleasure."

He locks me into a cabin. I don't quite understand why. Surely Blake knows I would never do anything against him? Perhaps he is concerned for my safety. The mutoid appeared unstable. I would not want Blake to have to clean up my blood. It's an unpleasant job. So I strip and use the attached faciliites, meager as they are, and prepare myself.

Blake comes to me after a while, and takes me. He isn't particularly gentle, but then, I suppose he has a right to be angry with me still. I did spoil his plans for our reunion. Afterward, he lies on me for a time, then leaves. I wish he would stay and talk, but he says he is very busy.

He will be back, though. He touches my face, and smiles. He tell me that I was very good. I am pleased by his praise. "Servalan did quite a job on you," he mutters, shaking his head. "Still, I can't complain. It makes it easier for me."

I do not know what Servalan has to do with anything, but perhaps she has been harassing Blake. I promise myself to kill her at the next opportunity.

We are on Blake's ship for what seems like weeks. I'm not certain, though because there is no time-keeping mechanism in the cabin, and Blake does not let me leave it. He visits me often, though, and makes love to me, so I don't complain.

One day, or night, whichever it was, the cabin door opens, and Blake is there. He gestures for me to come out. I hesitate, and he looks angry. Blake has quite a temper when balked, and I don't wish to argue with him, so I leave the safety of the cabin and accompany him to the flight deck.

He snatches up my right arm and twists it high behind my back just before we enter the compartment. I cry out as this is even more painful than some of things he does to me in bed, when he is angry. Blake is often angry, and I don't quite understand why. He pushes me forward, and I stumble onto the flight deck.

The mutoid is at the controls, looking even more unstable than I recall. Blake barks a command and she reaches out with a hand that trembles, and a large vid-screen comes on. I wonder why Blake is showing an old recorded image of himself on the vid-screen. Perhaps it is because he doesn't like his scars and this image has none. And of course, the old Blake is on the _Liberator's_ flight deck instead of that of a poorly maintained Pursuit Ship.

"Travis!" The old Blake cries. Behind him there are other people, who also make noises of surprise. Jenna is there, and Vila, and Cally, of course. Gan isn't there, so that gives me a slightly better idea of the time this recording was done. I'm not on the scene, though. Perhaps I was busy in the workroom. Or off-watch, sleeping. Trying to sleep. Even then I was obsessed with Blake to quite an inconvenient degree.

Then Blake, the old Blake, says, "Avon, are you all right? What has Travis done to you?"

I don't see why Blake would ever have said that, much less made a recording of it.

I think about it, while Blake holds my arm in a very discomforting grip, and talks to Blake. They are arguing, and the others in the background are shouting, too. They seem particularly upset when Blake mentions how many times he has had sex with me. I don't know why this bothers the old Blake so. 

Then Blake says he will kill me, if Blake doesn't give himself up to Blake. I am trying very hard to make sense of this.

And then Tarrant comes onto the _Liberator's_ flight deck.

Tarrant.

It can't be.

Dayna and Soolin follow him.

They add to the confusion swirling in my mind. I wish my Blake would explain, and I ask him to, but he laughs, and twists my arm so far up that I feel something tear, and I scream.

I hadn't meant to, but there wasn't time to set myself to ignore it. The old Blake goes white, and shouts, "Stop it! All right, Travis, you've won."

Everyone on the _Liberator_ is now shouting at Blake. Blake. No. My Blake. No. The Blake who is hurting me. _He_ is laughing. And it isn't a nice laugh. 

And my arm hurts.

Badly.

I have bitten my lip, trying to keep quiet, and I feel the blood dripping warm down onto my chin.

This can't be Blake. 

And if it is, then I am wrong about Blake. This Blake, at least. I do not want him hurting the other Blake, the old, unscarred Blake, the way he is hurting me.

But how can I stop him? I have no weapons, and he is much stronger than I am.

I look, really look, around the flight deck, for the first time. And the mutoid looks back. She is staring at me. At my lip. At my blood.

I look back at her. Vectors. Flying blood. 

I bite down hard, cutting clear through my lip. Then I throw my head up sharply and to one side. I can't see it, but I know. I have computed the angle and the velocity. My blood strikes the mutoid on the face, going into her mouth.

She has been starved and this breaks the last remnant of her control. She lunges forward, going for my throat.

Blake yells an order, but she is mad. She pulls me out of his grip, and throws me to one side. And then she attacks him.

There is a great deal of noise, but it doesn't last long. I raise myself, awkwardly, on the good arm, trying not the jar the other too much, as I fear I am likely to faint, and I must remain conscious long enough to see what has happened.

I manage to get to my knees. My name is being called, loudly, but it is the old Blake calling me, and I must see to the new Blake.

He is on his back, and the mutoid is on top of him. Neither of them are moving. The mutoid's back is... exploded, flesh and greenish fluids everywhere. I will not clean it, though.

I pull, and the mutoid's body slides off Blake, partway, and then it stops. I see that its draw needle is embedded in Blake's body. In Blake's heart.

I think I will die, myself, but first I will look at Blake's face once more. I do. But it is blurry. I blink. Slowly the blur resolves.

It isn't Blake.

It's not.

Travis.

Travis. Servalan....Terminal... machines... voices in my head.... 

It's not real. I laugh, and the laugh does not sound right, even to me. Then I faint.

I wake up on the _Liberator_ with everyone I lo...well, everyone I am in close association with, around my bedside in the medical unit.

Orac explains it all to me, but I can't fully believe it until Blake agrees to dual mode therapy to wipe out the programming that Servalan installed on me at Terminal, before the _Liberator_ executed my contingency plan and fled. They were unable to return immediately because it took some time to decontaminate the ship and then locate Blake. It seems that Vila had argued that Blake would find me. Something about fate.

Vila does have some appalling delta superstitions.

The interesting thing about dual mode therapy is that both parties experience things from the other's point of view.

Blake was...

Well...

He wasn't entirely adverse to a more congenial relationship. Fortunately Jenna and Soolin had taken an immediate liking to each other, so there was no real argument when I moved into Blake's quarters, displacing Jenna.

Vila's bold stand against Tarrant when they were discussing whether or not to ask Blake to take over command of the _Liberator_ had impressed Dayna, so the two of them are now happily settled.

And Cally and Tarrant have merged curls. It looks insufferably cute when they kiss. 

Blake and I, of course, look very dignified together. We have a lot in common, actually. He's not as hare-brained as I thought. Some of his ideas are quite practical.

We might even get back to rebellion some day. 

But there's no hurry.

**Author's Note:**

> As the President of HEX (Happy Ending eXpeditors, a phrase coined by Nova) I had often (with pre-approval) written positive ending sequels to other author's downbeat endings on the adult Blake's 7 mailing list. (Heck, I'd HEXed canonical episodes, too- B7 was BLEAK so there was plenty of temptation to fix things.)
> 
> In December of 2001 we were commemorating (by writing fic) the twentieth anniversary of the airing of the final episode of Blake's 7, which was the most downbeat, heartbreaking (in an awesome way) series ending. This naturally led to a lot of downbeat ending fics, and my friends generously let me sequel them. I tried to make each of mine actually work as a standalone, but of course they work better if you read the inspiration, too.


End file.
